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The ‘Song of Bagauda’: a Hausa king list and homily in verse—II1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

M. Hiskett
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Extract

English Translation: The ‘Song Of Bagauda’ In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate. May God bless our Lord Muḥammad and his family, and his Companions, and his wives, and his offspring, and grant them peace.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , February 1965 , pp. 112 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1965

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Footnotes

1

For part I see BSOAS, XXVII, 3, 1964, 540–67; part III (conclusion) will appear in BSOAS, XXVIII, 2, 1965.

References

2 An early infancy legend: Ibn Sīrat al-nabī, Cairo, 1937, I, 176–8; also Guillaume, , The life of Muhammad, London, 1955, 71–2.Google Scholar

3 Qur'ān IX, 109, ‘Is he, then, who lays his foundation on duty to Allah and His good pleasure better, or he who lays his foundation on the edge of a cracking hollow bank, so that it broke down with him into Hell-fire ?’

4 ibid., II, 177, ‘ … but the righteous is the one who believes in God … and gives away wealth out of love for Him to the near of kin and the orphan and the needy and the wayfarer …’; and XVI, 90, ‘Surely God enjoins justice and the doing of good and the giving to the kindred …’.

5 The sense of this line is obscure. I assume the meaning is that if you fail to ask a need of someone, you imply that he is miserly. I have rationalized the translation in this sense.

6 Qur'ān III, 184, ‘… And the life of this world is nothing but vanities ’ ibid., VI, 32, ‘And this world's life is naught but a play and an idle sport’; et passim.

7 1:500,000 Map of Nigeria, Survey Dept. of Nigeria, 1924, sheet 3, sq. E15.

8 The name of a quarter in Kano, said to háve been so named because of the mahogany tree which grew there. Said also to be the site of the graves of the ancient Maguzawa chiefs.

9 Pagan ancestors after whom the present quarters in Kano are named.

10 The ancestors of the Habe dynasty which continued up to the time of Alwali.

11 Qur'ān XVIII,54, ‘…and man is in most things contentious’

12 1:500,000 Map of Sigma, sheet 8, sq. F22, Bornu.

13 Either people from Kamba, 1:500,000 Map, sheet 1, sq. E4, Sokoto, or from Kambari, sheet 4, sq. E22, Bornu.

14 North of Sokoto.

15 The Saharan oasis.

16 Usually ‘the Niger’, although in this context it may refer to one of the several rivers in the Kano area.

17 Possibly from Tokaro, 1:500,000 Map, sheet 1, sq. A5.

18 Touareg slaves. They are said to hold a yearly festival in which they beat the drum known as dandufa.

19 1:500,000 Map, sheet 2, sq. D13.

20 ibid., sheet 2, sq. E13.

21 Not traced.

22 1:500,000 Map, sheet 3, sq. E14.

23 Not traced.

24 1:500,000 Map, sheet 3, sq. E14.

25 Possibly Gandu, 1:500,000 Map, sheet 3, sq. D17.

26 ibid., sheet 1, sq. E3.

27 ibid., sheet 3, sq. D14.

28 Said to be one of the pagan forebears of the Hausa.

29 A pagan forebear.

30 Palmer, H. R. ‘The Kano Chronicle’, Sudanese memoirs, Lagos, 1928, III, 99.Google Scholar

31 ibid., 100, Warisi.

32 ibid., 101.

33 ibid., 101.

34 ibid., 100, Gijimasu.

35 i.e. death. Possibly an eoho of Qur'an XXXIX, 25,‘Those before them denied, so the chastisement came to them from whence they perceive not’, and XLIII, 66, ‘Wait they for aught but the Hour, that it should come on them all of a sudden, while they perceive not ?’.

36 Palmer, op. cit., III, 101.

37 ibid., 107, Bugaya ? H attributes only three years to Bagaji.

38 Palmer, op. cit., III, 102.

39 I have adopted the reading of B and H.

40 Palmer, op. cit., III,107.

41 ibid., 108.

42 ibid., 111.

43 ibid., 104, alias Yaji.

44 ibid., 109.

45 Possibly an echo of Qur'ān LXIII, 10–11, ‘And spend out of that which We have given you before death comes to one of you, and he says: My Lord, why didst Thou not respite me to a near term, so that I should have given alms and been of the doers of good deeds? But God respites not a soul, when its term comes. And God is aware of what you do’.

46 Palmer, op. cit., III, 109.

47 ibid., 110; H attributes seven years only to Yaḱubu.

48 Palmer, op. cit., III, 112, Abdullahi, son of Mohamman Rimfa?

49 mulkin tausayi can also mean ‘a merciful reign’, and this rendering is possible in the context.

50 Palmer, op. cit., III, 112.

51 ibid., 115, Mohamman Shashere?

52 Possibly Yakufu, son of Kisoki, Palmer, op. cit., III, 114.

53 ibid., 114, Abubakar Kado?

54 Palmer, op. cit., III, 116.

55 ibid., 118.

56 ibid., 120.

57 ibid., 119.

58 ibid., 120.

59 ibid., 120.

60 ibid., 121.

61 ibid., 122.

62 ibid., 123.

63 The Kwararrafa were Jukuns. According to the Kano Chronicle an attaek by the Kwararrafa occurred during the reign of Muhamman Kukuna. The Kano Chronicle also notes war between Kano and the chief of Gobir during the reign of Kumbari, son of Sharifa.

64 Palmer, op. cit., III, 124.

65 Literally ‘He knew that flour which is finely ground and soft can be ground again’.

66 Palmer, op. cit., III, 126.

67 ibid., 126.

68 Literally ‘He had abundance of protective quilting for horses’. Lifida is here used for 'yan lifida, just as dawaki is used for cavalry.

69 Literally ‘a ladder’.

70 Palmer, op. cit., III, 127.

71 Compare Qur'ān LXXVII, 35, ‘This is the day on which they speak not, nor are they allowed to offer excuses’.

72 Palmer, op. cit., III, 127.

73 b. Fūdī of the Arabic manuseript tradition.

74 Palmer, op. cit., III, 127.

75 The practice of afi—sprinkling dust on the head as an act of obeisance before the ruler—is of considerable antiquity. It was recorded by al-Bakrl (Description de l'Afrique septentrionale, translated by de Slane, Paris, 1913, 329), and was subsequently observed by Ibn Baṭṭūta, who visited Mali in 1352 ( Gibb, H. A. R. Ibn Baṭṭūta, London, 1929, 327).Google Scholar It was commented on more than four centuries later by b. Fūdī ( Hiskett, M. ‘Kitāb al-farq’, BSOAS, XXIII, 3, 1960, 569).Google Scholar

76 Dabo, Ibrahim Palmer, op. cit., III, 128.Google Scholar

77 ibid., 129.

78 ibid., 130.

79 ibid., 132.

80 ibid. Or possibly ‘across the boundary’ depending on whether Guru, which is north-west of Kano, where he died, was part of the domain of Kano or not. H has ‘Death came to him in the north’.

81 1894–1903; H attributes nine years to him.

82 1903–19.

83 Clearly at this point the copyist of A omitted to amend the verses which had become inappropriate on the death of Abashe in 1919. B and H omit these two verses.

84 1919–26. B has:

Uthmanu is now upon the throne;

He has reigned eight years and eight months, no longer;

Know you Uthmanu who has reigned

With justice and merciful leniency.

H has:

Abashe ruled for seventeen years, the just one,

With justice in his heart and leniency.

We pray our Lord to have mercy on Abashe,

And make easy (for him) the lying in the tomb.

85 H now goes on to mention the reign of Abdullahi Bayero, who succeeded Uthmanu. See Hausa text, BSOAS, XXVII, 3, 1964, p. 550, n. 82.Google Scholar

86 Certain of the bori have the power of mesmerizing and paralysing. See Greenberg, Joseph The influence of Islam on a Sudanese religion (Monographs of the American Ethnological Society), New York, 1946, 33.Google Scholar

87 That is, when the world disappoints you, you seek comfort in the insincere flattery of courtiere and hangers-on.

88 This curious line is explained as follows: the hyena is said to have the power to strike a person speechless, and paralyse him with fear (thus the phrase kura ta yi mini Kofi). Therefore, if a man shoots the hyena, this power is destroyed, and in consequence the shooter will babble like a madman. I am indebted for this explanation to Malam Hayatu.

89 There is a Gunka on 1:500,000 Map of Nigeria, sheet 3, sq. D15. The sudden intrusion of the first person in this line is difficult to aecount for, but it appears in A, B, and H. Malam Isa's explanation is that it is intended to be the direct speech of one infatuated by sudden good fortune and the favours of the chief, and that it is meant to be read mockingly.

90 According to the exegetes Qur'ān II, 258, refers to Nimrod.

91 Naṣar of the Islamic tradition—Nebuchadnezzar.

92 Alexander the Great.

93 Qur'ān XXVII, 32–44; XXXVIII, 27–36. The stories of these four personalities from ancient Middle Eastern tradition—Nimrod, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, and Solomon have been greatly embellished in Muslim sources, and they are portrayed as four kings who had dominion over the whole world. The legend has certainly reached the Muslims of Northern Nigeria through the ‘Annals’ of al-ṭabarī.

94 King of Gobir, 1776–94.

95 King of Gobir, 1802–8. The arch-enemy of Shehu dan Fodio.

96 The Kano Chronicle mentions a Soba Sarkin Gobir who was a contemporary of Kumbari (1731–43), Palmer, op. cit., III, 124.

97 King of Gobir, 1794–1800.

98 B adds: You know there is no Dan Kasawa; no Raud,

And Dan Mari and Ramtse in the grave.

Dan Mari is possibly Umaru dan Mari, a leader of the Habe in Maradi who attacked the Fulani in Kano in 1844 ( Hogben, , The Muhammadan emirates of Nigeria, Oxford, 1930, 77). Raụd was also a leader of the Maradi Habe who revolted against the Fulani of Sokoto. He was killed at the battle of Gawauke, 1835 (Hogben, op. cit., 115). I have not been able to trace the other two names.Google Scholar

99 1:500,000 Map of Nigeria, sheet 7, sq. F16 or G14.

100 Towards Mecca.

101 The Muslim statement of belief: ‘There is no god but God; Muḥammad is His Prophet’.

102 Qur'ān IV, 43. Where water is not available, and in certain other circumstances, the Muslim is permitted to carry out ceremonial ablution using sand or similar material. Tayammumis permitted in the case of invalide. The reference to the wall is obscure: it apparently means that earth may be scraped from the surface of the wall, or that the hands may be rubbed against the wall.

103 Iqāma (Arabic) is a technical term applied to the mu'azzin's second call to prayer. Here, however, it appears to mean simply the act of standing to recite the Qur'ān-presumably al-Fātiha.

104 Nuni in this context raeans ‘the turning towards the Qibla’ which is part of the ritual of Muslim prayer.

105 Possibly a reflection of Qur'ān LIV, 7, ‘Their eyes cast down, they will go forth from their graves as if they were scattered locusts’, and LXX, 43–4, ‘The day when they come forth from the graves in haste as hastening on to a goal, their eyes cast down, disgrace covering them. Such is the day which they are promised’.

106 The Qur'ān constantly condemns idle chatter: IX, 69, ‘… thus have you enjoyed your portion as those before you enjoyed their portion, and you indulge in idle talk as they did’; XLIII, 83, ‘So let them talk and sport until they meet their day which they are promised’; LXXIV, 45, ‘And we indulged in vain talk with vain talkers’; LXXXVIII, 10–11, ‘In a lofty garden, wherein thou wilt hear no vain talk’.

107 Possibly an echo of Qur'ān XXXVIII, 29, ‘A Book that we have revealed to thee abounding in good, that they may ponder over its verses, and that men of understanding may mind’. Natsewa and other derivatives from the root nats-, nits-, nuts- in the contexts in which they are used in this poem are strongly reminiscent of the Qur'anie ūlū al-albāb.

108 I have here followed the order of B and H, since the sense indicates that the lines have become misplaeed in A.

109 The line is obscure. Zoba normally means ‘to vomit’, and is intransitive. My Hausa informants all agree that in this context it means ‘ to evacuate the corpse’, and I have adopted this rendering, although I am unable to offer any grammatical or lexicographical justification for this. It seems possible that this is a specialized use of the word which has not found its way into the dictionaries.

110 Or if we adopt the putative reading of A and B ‘If there has been a misearriage, but (the infant) is born alive …’.

111 See Hausa text, BSOAS, XXVII, 3, 1964, p. 556, n. 133.Google Scholar

112 Qur'ān IX, 84, ‘And never offer prayer for any one of them who dies, nor stand by his grave. Surcly they disbelieved in God and His Messenger and they died in transgression’.

113 This is not laid down in the Qur'ān, but in fiqh; see the article in the Encyclopaedia of Islam.

114 When preparing a grave the Hausa pile the surface soil to one side and the sub-soil taken from the niche to the other side. Some say that the sub-soil, being more tacky, mixes readily with water to the a hard covering over the grave. The WB makes it elear, however, that there is a deeper significance, and in this connexion Sheikh Amadou Hampate Ba has drawn my attention to a widespread African belief that clothing and other materials which have been in contact with a person's body acquire something of his personality, and are thus particularly efficacious when uaed in prayer. Thus certain pagan tribes when praying for rain, take off their garments, turn them inside out, and expose them in supplication. It is probable that we have here a simiiar African concept of inherence carried over into the burial custom of the Hausa.

115 Tremearne, Compare The ban ofthe bori, London, 1914, 127–8.Google Scholar

116 Compare the attitude of Shehu b. Fūdī in his Bayān al-bida' ( Hiskett, , ‘An Islamic tradition of reform in the Western Sudan from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century’, BSOAS, XXV, 3, 1962, 594).Google Scholar

117 There are many references in the Qur'an to the eternal reward. Qur'ān ni, 132, which occurs in reference to the Battle of Uḥud, may be what the poet has in mind: ‘And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord, and a garden, as wide as the heavens and the earth; it is prepared for those who keep their duty’.

118 It seems that ‘Malam Shu'aibu’, ‘the man of Gimbane’, and ‘Shehu Gimbanawa’ referred to below, all refer to the same person.

119 Compare Qur'ān VIII, 67, ‘You desire the frail goods of this world, while God desires (for you) the Hereafter’.

120 Compare Qur'ān XXIV, 26, ‘Unclean things are for the unclean, and the unclean are for unclean things, and good things are for the good and the good are for good things’.

121 I have adopted the reading of B and H. Compare the al-zulāl of the Imām Muḥammad b. al-ḥājj 'Abd al-Raḥmān al-Barnāwi ( Bivar, and Hiskett, , ‘The Arabic literature of Nigeria to 1804: a provisional account’, BSOAS, XXV, 1, 1962, 119 ff.).Google Scholar

122 A member of the a Sufist ṭarāqa strong in North Afriea.

123 Compare Shehu Naṣā'iḥ al-ummat al-muḥammadīya ( Hiskett, , ‘An Islamic tradition of reform’, BSOAS, XXV, 3, 1962, 588). The illegal confiscation of the property of orphans was clearly one of the crucial points at issue in the confrontation between Islam and paganism. It is, of course, a frequent subject of reference in the Qur'ān: IV, 2; XVII, 34; et passim.Google Scholar

124 This is a very clear echo of Qur'ān IV, 10, ‘Surely those who devour the property of orphans unjustly shall swallow only fire into their bellies, and shall roast in raging fire’.

125 This practice is characteristic of the Hausa imām. A Fulani prayer-leader would not do this. Compare the institution of bakin sarki—the chief's crier, a functionary who repeats in a loud voice what the chief has said in normal tones. This institution is common to many African courts, and suggests an origin for the unorthodox practice of prayer among the Hausa. I am informed, in connexion with communal prayer, that whereas a Hausa would always accept a Fulani imām to lead prayer, no Fulani would knowingly pray behind a Hausa, for fear of partieipating in some innovation.

126 There is little doubt that this custom is associated with the notion of baraka (Hausa barka). Each member of the congregation has acquired barakaby his participation in communal prayer. By hand-shaking there takes place an interchange of baraka among all the participants. The idea of baraka is widespread throughout Islam, particularly in North Africa. As far as I can discover, however, this sharing of virtue after communal prayer is peculiar to the Hausa, and one may postulate an underlying concept of group sanctity.

127 According to the practice of the Prophet Muḥammad.

128 H has gidan sadaka. In a house where someone has died it is customary to give alms Arabic ṣadaqa) three days after the death, and this usually takes the form of pounded bulrush millet which should be given to the neighbours, but which in fact is often given to the imām who conducts the last rites. After this first sadaka there are subsequent alms-givings which take place after seven days, forty days, and then on the anniversary of the death.

129 cf. n. 128 above.

130 Compare al-zulāl, ‘And everything which is taken (by the judge) in return for his judgment, leave it, even if the judgment is lawful; do not eat it’ ( Bivar, and Hiskett, , BSOAS, XXV, 1, 1962, 128).Google Scholar

131 Qur'ān II, 188, ‘And swallow not up your property among yourselves by false means, nor seek to gain access thereby to the judges, so that you may swallow up a part of the property of men wrongfully while you know’.

132 Qur'ān V, 44, ‘And whosoever judgeth not according to what God has revealed, they are infidels’.

133 1:500,000 Map of Nigeria, sheet 2, sq. E13.

134 Wnereas the sedentary Fulani, even to the present day, observe striet purdah, the Hausa do not, and never have done so. See Shehu Kitāb al-farq ( Hiskett, , BSOAS, XXIII, 3, 1960, 569).Google Scholar

135 Certain strict and conservative alqalai will not, to this day, allow the evidence of one who does not keep his wives in purdah.

136 Sūrat al-aḥzāb (sūrah XXXIII), verses 33 (‘… and stay in your houses and display not your beauty like the displaying of the ignorance of yore…’) and 37 (‘Keep thy wife to thyself and keep thy duty to Allah’).

137 Malam ‘Rapacious’.

138 A common Habe name indicating that the bearer is not worthy of respect.

139 ‘Coek pigeon’.

140 Said to indicate unreliability.

141 The reference is said to be to the writing of Qur'anic charms, which are then washed off with water. This water is mixed with the milk of a sheep bearing these markings, and the mixture is drunk. Also certain organ s of such sheep are eaten after slaughter, and are thought to have magical properties. Compare Greenberg, The influence of Islam, 38, 42.

142 Copper is said to be partieularly efficacious in protecting against the jinn and the evil eye.

143 Lit. ‘pilgrira fowls’: a reference to the all-white attire of the pilgrims at Mecca. The variant form alhazai/alliazawa for etymologica] alhajai/alJmjawa is due to the natural ‘depalatalization’ of j in Hausa before vowels a, o, and u. The influence of urban Moroccan dialects which Greenberg postulates (‘Arabic loan-words in Hausa’, Word, III, 1–2, 1947, 87) appears to me highly unlikely on historical as well as phonetic grounds, since it assumes that at a time when a very early loan-word—a basic Islamic term which must have been adopted very soon after the appearance of Islam in the fourteenth century—came into the language, urban Moroccan dialects were the same as they are to-day. There are serious objections to this assumption.

144 The practice of sand divining is widespread throughout North Africa. On one occasion, when watching too inquisitively a seance of a sand diviner in progress in a Tunisian street, the diviner's client, an elderly peasant woman, protested angrily that my presence would interfere with the divination, and I was sharply rebuked by the diviner for my curiosity!

145 A Habe name given to one bearing the Muslim name of Abubakar. Here it is used mockingly.

146 This particular form of fortune-telling is said to be a kind of Kur'a (from Arabic q.r.'?) in which the sheets are ruled off in squares, each square bearing an Arabic character or numeral. The omens are read according to the magical values of the characters and numbers. Such fortune-telling by numbers is, of course, common elsewhere in the Islamic world. It appears likely that we have here an admixture of Muslim and pagan practice, as in the mixing of Qur'anic charms with the milk of a talismanic sheep.

147 H has in addition:

Go and find a darkish grey hen, and a honey-coloured hen;

Give them as alms, and the spirit of the bush will hold back misfortune.

Compare Greenberg, The influence of Islam, 37, 38, 51.

148 Makasa ? ibid., 34.

149 Malam ‘Forgetful’.

150 That is, an iron ring—as a charm against the bori, who abhor this metal (Tremearne, op. cit., 51, 261, 289, 449). The copper ring, as has been said above, is for protection against the evil eye.

151 I am informed by Malam Shehu Lemu, himself a Nupe, that among the Nupe a charm is placed in a horn, which is then sealed and hung outside the house to drive away evil spirits. Again, a section of horn is cut off, and filled with a magical powder, sealed, and attached to a laya(Qur'ān charm). Often a copper ring is also attached, and this prophylactic apparatus is worn round the waist to ward off the evil eye.

152 Malam Shehu Lemu describes cowrie divination as follows. The diviner has about twenty strings of cowrie shells, with some twenty shells on each string. He has also a number of pieces of calabash marked with dots in various patterns, rather like dominoes. The dots are known by the Nupe word ati (Arabic ‘writing’). Each pattern has a separate name, such as maku(Arabic manqūs ‘diminished’). The cowries are thrown and the patterns are arranged according to the fall of the cowries. There are sixteen possible positions in which each of the calabash pieces can be placed in relation to the rest, and each of these positions is known as a ‘house’. Upon the final arrangement of the calabash pieces divination depends. By another method separate cowrie shells are thrown, and divination depends upon how many fall with the ‘mouth’ of the shell uppermost. Divination by cowries is called in Nupe ebasanci. See also Greenberg, The influence of Islam, 42.

153 Malam Shehu connects this with the Nupe soninya (Hausa sarauniya ?). This person is said to be a woman who has charge over the Nupe markets, and is appointed because she possesses magical powers. Outstanding among her powers is the ability of knowing whether a person has died a natural death, or has fallen victim to the evil eye. Moreover, she can identify the one who has cast the evil eye, who is then expelled from the market by the soninya, and if he or she refuses to depart the soninya can transfer the disease which killed the victim to the offender. Compare the arifa or sarauniya of the North African Hausa communities (Tremearne, op. cit., 273–8 et passim).

154 Certain malams appoint themselves custodians of the graves of holy men (Arabic sing, walī), and collect money from those who come to visit them. There are several such graves in the vicinity of Kano. One on the main road to Katsina is known as ‘Kabarin Malam Kabara’, and is frequently visited in order to gain baraka. Another is between Kofar Mazugal and Fagge, and is the grave of a holy man known as Wali Mai Geza. A third is close to Goran Dutse Prison, and is known as Mai Kargo. These holy men are said to have died long ago, and all details of their lives appear to have been forgotten. The graves, however, are still known to be those of walīs because, so it is said, on Thursday nights, and on the eve of Salla festivale at about midnight, a bright light is seen shining round the grave. It is the poor Hausa who visit these graves, and particularly women who are barren. The Fulani are said to háve nothing to do with this practice, although I am told that some Fulani women do send their Hausa women-servants to supplicate on their behalf. The money which is given to the custodians of these graves is termed sadaka— that is ‘alms’, but in fact it is nothing but a douceur to the custodians. For Shehu dan Fodio's attitude to these practices see Bayān al-bida' ( Hiskett, , ‘An Islamic tradition of reform’, BSOAS, XXV, 3, 1962, 594).Google Scholar

155 Said to have been a member of the Shehu's family.

156 A term of contempt (? dangira).

157 See p. 134, n. 152.

158 Compare Qur'ān XXIV, 19, ‘Those who love that soandal should circulate respecting those who believe, for them is a grievous chastisement in this world and the Hereafter’; and XLIX, 12, ‘O you who believe, avoid most of suspieion, for surely suspicion in some cases is sin; and spy not, nor let some of you backbite others’.

159 Compare with the familiar Arabian condemnation of those who ‘sever the bonds of relationship’, an act held to be highly displeasing to God.

160 The civil exchange of greetings between Muslims is enjoined by the Qur'ān XXIV, 61, ‘So when you enter houses, greet your people with a salutation from God, blessed and goodly’.